List of Courses at the YIF (2018-2019)

S. No. Course Faculty

1 Foundations of Leadership Prof. Dwight Jaggard

JM Financial Lectures on Reason and the Maker

2 Prof. Rudrangshu Mukherjee
of Modern India

Political Economy of India’s Development Since

3 Dr. Mihir Shah
1947

4 Fundamentals of Law Prof. Apurv Mishra

5 Art Appreciation Prof. Anunaya Chaubey

6 Heart of Leadership Prof. Kenwyn Smith

Economic Reason and Public Policy: An

7 Prof. A.K. Shivakumar
Introduction to Applied Microeconomics

8 Whose Heritage Is It? Prof. Shobita Punja

9 Kabir: The Poet of Vernacular Modernity Prof. Purushottam Agrawal

10 Indian Ecosophy Prof. Aseem Shrivastava

11 Mathematical Thinking Prof. Maya Saran

 List of Courses at the YIF (2018-2019)

Problem Solving and Statistical Thinking in

12 Prof. Santosh Venkatesh
Modern Life

13 Science as a Renaissance Activity Prof. Vijay Singh

14 Translating India Prof. Rita Kothari

15 Paradise Lost: A Text for Our Times Prof. Malabika Sarkar

16 Why is Globalization on Trial? Prof. Nayan Chanda

17 Making Sense of Indian Elections Prof. Gilles Verniers

18 Totalitarian Century? Prof. Dilip Simeon

19 Law and Economics Prof. Subhashish Gangopadhyay

20 India’s Economy – Past, Present and Near Future Prof. Omkar Goswami

Dr. Patrick French & Dr. T.C.A.

21 The Historical Moment
Raghavan

22 Basic Group Dynamics Prof. Kenwyn Smith

24 The Arts of Communication Prof. Mihir Mankad

 List of Courses at the YIF (2018-2019)

25 Women, Society and Changing India Prof. Urvashi Butalia

26 Gender and Culture in Bombay Cinema Prof. Geetanjali Chanda

27 Shakespeare and the World Prof. Gil Harris & Prof. Madhavi Menon

Prof. Devesh Kapur & Prof. E.

28 International Relations
Sreedharan

India and the World – A Strategic History Since

29 Prof. Rudra Chaudhuri
1945

Deconstructing Select Indian Foreign Policy

30 Challenges and Responses: A Practitioner’s Prof. Arun Singh
Perspective

Issues in Social Democracy and Social Justice in

31 Prof. Narendra Jadhav
India

33 Ecology and Global Modernity Prof. Aseem Shrivastava

34 Philosophy and Cognitive Science Prof. Ritwik Agrawal

35 Evolution, Economics and Reasons Prof. William Scott Green

 List of Courses at the YIF (2018-2019)

Course Title - Reasons and Makers of Modern India

Faculty - Prof. Rudrangshu Mukherjee

The title of the course explains its purpose and its theme. What needs to be explicated
is the way it approaches this very broad subject. The lectures will look at the life and
career of certain individuals who used to reason to put forward their arguments and
also believed in the power of reason to transform society. It will place the individuals
in a specific historical context – this will also serve to introduce to the class the basic
contours of the making of modern India – and then analyse their careers in relation to
the context. This will serve to bring in to focus their impact as well as their
contradictions and slippages. A word of warning: it should not be assumed that these
were the only individuals to have pursued reason in modern India. In fact, the course
should provoke students to look at other stalwarts who were committed to the
advocacy of reason.

Course Title - Political Economy of India’s Development

Faculty - Mihir Shah

The course will address the following:

1. Markets and Government: A Critical Look at Key Drivers of Change.

2. India’s Development Strategy: The First 33 Years (1947-1980).
3. India’s Development Strategy: The Last 33 Years (1980-2013).
4. Adivasi Predicament in India.
5. A Paradigm Shift in Water Management in India – Part I.
6. A Paradigm Shift in Water Management in India – Part II.
7. MGNREGA: An Instrument of Inclusive and Sustainable Growth.
8. Civil Society in India: Theoretical Perspectives and Empirical Strands.
9. Human Freedom: The Teachings of the Bhagavad Gita with Occasional References
to those of the Buddha.
10. Pulling the Threads Together
 List of Courses at the YIF (2018-2019)

Course Title - Whose Heritage Is It?

Faculty - Shobita Punja

This course, spread over 10 classes will offer an introduction to the diverse and
complex nature of Indian art and culture (Natural, Tangible and Intangible heritage).
It will begin with understanding the relationship of cultural development and the
environment along with the threats facing our natural heritage. There will be visits to
important cultural institutions in Delhi such as the National Museum, the Sanskriti
museums and Humayun’s Tomb, a World Heritage Site to understand the contribution
made by different communities, historic periods and regions to the development of a
composite heritage. Experts, practitioners from associated fields that encompass
various genres of heritage and faiths will be invited to interact with students. This
exposure will also introduce students to the key players in the area of heritage
conservation and the innovations made in this field.
The purpose of this programme is to provide first-hand experience of different aspects
of heritage, so that students can decide for themselves what they consider their
heritage and what can be done, if anything, for its survival and continuity. The course
has been crafted specifically for the YIF by Dr. Shobita Punja, one of the most
renowned & respected figures in the field of Indian Culture & Heritage.

Course Title - Problem Solving and Statistical Thinking in Modern Life

Faculty - Santosh S. Venkatesh

This course deals with how to statistically analyze data and make decisions based on
the data. Probability forms the mathematical framework on which statistics rests.
Building on basic probabilistic concepts we will cover the following major topical
themes in statistics with applications drawn from a welter of domains. Statistics is
learnt best by coupling mathematical analysis with actual data manipulation on test
cases. Computer-aided graphical analysis is highly recommended as it allows the
discovery of patterns in complex data.
 List of Courses at the YIF (2018-2019)

Course Title - Mathematical Thinking

Faculty - Maya Saran

Some of humankind’s most powerful and beautiful ideas live in Mathematics. This
ancient and most human of disciplines also happens to be the ideal arena in which to
gain experience in rigourous analytical thinking and creative problem solving with an
emphasis on writing precisely and correctly. These twin aspects of Mathematics will
drive this course, and the topics we will choose to work with will not require any
technical background – you will be given all the tools you need. During this course,
you will:

1. Develop a set of broadly useful problem solving skills and strategies These include
strategies such as first addressing a simplified version of the question,
examining extreme cases, making conjectures in the absence of solutions and
the like. More broadly, you will gain experience with struggling with an
unyielding problem, treating mistakes and false starts as essential, and being flexible,
creative and persistent.

2. Gain experience in critical and analytical thinking Mathematics trains us to always

ask and answer the question, “How do we know that?” You will be expected to make
clear arguments of your own, and to read and analyse the arguments of others.

3. Encounter some of history’s landmark ideas over the course of these 20 hours, we
will look at the existence of non-rational lengths, the foundation of calculus, and
Cantor’s set theory. We take all of these for granted today, but they were all
groundbreaking ideas in their time. This is a chance to get a sense of why.

Course title - The Historical Moment

Faculty - Patrick French & T.C.A. Raghavan

The course is an accessible introduction to the humanities and to the history of ideas.
It is aimed at students interested in literature and history, and in the connections
between them. No previous knowledge of world history, philosophy or literature is
assumed on the part of the students. Some intense reading of extracts from books will
be required. By ‘the historical moment’, we refer to the social, cultural, political and
surrounding circumstances that create a text, in combination with its author’s talent
and imagination.
 List of Courses at the YIF (2018-2019)

Course Title - Art Appreciation

Faculty – Anunaya Chaubey

The course on Art Appreciation is based on the premise that all of us have sufficient
critical sense to read diverse experiences and expressions of life. While we celebrate
this ability freely in critiquing concepts, phenomena and expressions that are
scientific, political, social, economic or multiple other things in nature, we find
ourselves unsure and diffident about critiquing an artistic expression, or at least
talking about it with reasonable conviction. This is perhaps because we have grown
up thinking of art as something too intellectual, mysterious and arcane and not as an
expression that has experiential and pragmatic roots. Of course, we respond to art
but we find our response to be a subjective one and are unable to articulate it in
objective terms. This is because most of us are unaware about how art works- what
are the elements that one should look for, how they work individually and collectively
to create a complex and a harmonious whole that a work of art essentially is.

Course Title - Foundations of Leadership

Faculty - Dwight Jaggard

The goal of Foundations of Leadership is to increase your capacity to effectively lead

throughout your career and wherever you find yourself. This involves understanding
and learning – through reflection on your experience and feedback from others –
about yourself and about working effectively with others. These abilities are essential
in meeting critical personal, interpersonal, and organizational challenges in India and
throughout the world. Here, topics include teamwork and team dynamics, decision
making, identifying and valuing life’s goals and dreams, being in “resonance” in our
work, knowing our core values, developing vision, understanding the fundamentals of
leadership, valuing differences, understanding the dynamics of influence, using power
with integrity, listening empathetically, given and receiving feedback, leading change,
exploring methods for achieving synergy between our personal, community and
professional lives, and discovering where we can make our contribution. The course
involves opportunities for feedback from both peers and faculty; it uses the classroom
as a learning laboratory, where in-class action is the basis for reflection and
knowledge.
 List of Courses at the YIF (2018-2019)

Course Title - Indian Ecosophy

Faculty - Aseem Shrivastava

Traditionally, Indian civilisation has had a very different relationship to nature when
compared with modern Western and Westernising cultures - including those of
‘modern’ India. Upanishadic notions like ‘vasudhaiva kutumbakam’ (the earth is one
family) have been integral to it. While metropolitan India modernises at an
accelerating pace, such beliefs continue to find their practical expression to this day
in the worship that ordinary Indians offer to rivers and Himalayan peaks, trees and
animals. This has no equivalent in the modern Western world. On the contrary, such
practices and beliefs have often been mocked by Western thinkers (for instance, by
Marx himself). It denotes a distinct eco-cultural inheritance, rooted in spirituality and
religious belief, that asks for systematic inquiry and research. Our forest-dwellers,
fishermen and farmers have long held and practised ecological beliefs and restraints,
today under huge developmental threats. Spendthrift, educated India has much to
learn from its poor, illiterate, but ecologically wiser citizens.

The aim of the course is to help students develop an understanding of the

uniqueness and depth of Indian ecological thought and practice, contrasting it with
modern Western approaches to our (default European Enlightenment-based) view
of the natural world. With the help of an understanding of the foundation laid by
Tagore and Gandhi, a critical as well as a creative Indian perspective on the
ecological crisis of modernity will emerge. An important goal of the course is to
relate an ecological outlook to its basis in authentic spiritual beliefs and practices.

Course Title - Women, Society and Changing India

Faculty - Urvashi Butalia

Examining the women’s movement in India from the 19th century to the present day
through texts, oral histories, visual sources, letters, etc., and a range of diverse
methodologies so that students are encouraged to experience the political as personal
(and vice versa) by engaging with and critically reflecting on their own and others’ lives
and histories.

The course will preserve the fluidity with which feminist movements have evolved in India
by allowing the students a space to focus on experience more than information. This will
enable students to utilize their own previous knowledge of events in history and
contemporary politics to develop a self-informed nuanced understanding of gender and
its relationship in society. Course assignments will also follow this format and mix the
practical with the theoretical and analytical.
 List of Courses at the YIF (2018-2019)

Course Title: Making Sense of Indian Elections

Faculty – Gilles Verniers

The purpose of the course “Making Sense of Indian Elections” is to introduce Fellows
to the art of electoral analysis and to teach them to examine political trends, issues and
questions through empirical or factual evidence. The course insists on the necessity to
confront common or dominant narratives on electoral politics with data; to ground
analysis and reflection on empirical observations. It also insists on the necessity to
critically engage with data, or not to take political data at face value.

Thus, this course is not an exercise of commentary or a debate club about electoral
outcomes or governments’ actions. The course also aims to introduce Fellows to
political data analysis, through practical assignments involving quantitative and
qualitative methods, as well as political cartography.

Course Title – Totalitarian Century?

Faculty – Dilip Simeon

The late Eric Hobsbawm (1917-2012) named the twentieth century ‘the age of
extremes’. With two world wars, acts of genocide, mass transfers of population; and
the spectre of nuclear annihilation, it is the period in which war is deemed to have
become ‘total’. What do the terms totality and extremism teach us, when applied to
history and politics? Do militarism and extremism have their roots in the revolutionary
upsurges and imperialist excursions of an earlier time? The course will study the war-
like aspect of modernity, through the history of conflict. The approach will be thematic,
and begin with the Napoleonic wars and major developments in the nineteenth
century.

We shall also examine ideas, and the emergence of ideologically driven movements in
Europe and Asia – including socialism, nationalism, militarism and their connection to
totalitarianism. We will cover historical events and philosophical issues, with the aim
of understanding totalitarian politics and provoking further study.
 List of Courses at the YIF (2018-2019)

Course Title – Translating India

Faculty – Rita Kothari

If we believe that languages constitute worlds differently, it would appear that certain
narratives may differ, in say Telugu, from those in English. Knowledge in the vernacular
languages (which some also call bhashas), when brought into conversation with that
formed in English, throws up interesting questions with respect to power, class, and
ideas of India. This course hopes to examine different archives, especially stories in
print, cinema, and songs, in order to develop class discussions around comparisons
and contrasts of the ‘regional’ and ‘cosmopolitan,’ or the centre and periphery. In
doing so, it opens up for students knowledge systems that surround them in everyday
contexts, but remain confined within Indian languages. Students would have to
collaborate in this process of knowledge-making and disruption so that we begin to
think of cultures in translation, in the process of making sense to each other, both
linguistically and culturally.

Aims:

1. To make students take cognizance of and appreciate the linguistic and regional
diversities they come from.
2. 2. To understand and appreciate the world of literature in India and learn how to
read a literary text with respect to its own terms of history, sociology, and
narrative-making.
3. To learn to read narratives in translation and understand the verbal and
nonverbal devices that go into their making.

Course Title – India’s Economy: Past, Present and Near Future

Faculty – Omkar Goswami

The object of this course is to closely familiarise the students with several key features
of India’s economy, especially the macroeconomics, growth of the corporate sector
and the challenges that face us going forward. It is very largely contexed within the
disciplines of economics, finance and corporate law. The idea is that, after the course,
students will have a good understanding of several aspects of the economy, and be
well versed to interpret the realities that they see today.
 List of Courses at the YIF (2018-2019)

Course Title – Fundamentals of Law

Faculty – Fundamentals of Law

The idea behind this course is to give Fellows a flavour of the most important
statutes that will cross their path in their life after YIF. In a series of 10 discussion
sessions, we cover the following 3 sets of laws:

1. Laws that you WILL HAVE TO KNOW ? Law of Contracts? Fundamentals of

Corporate Law? IPR Law- Copyrights, Trademarks and Patents
2. Laws that you SHOULD KNOW? Constitution of India? Consumer Protection
Act? Right to Information Act 3.
3. Laws that (I hope) you NEVER HAVE TO KNOW? Law of Dispute Resolution? Law
of Crimes? Law relating to Marriage, Divorce, Domestic Violence and Live-in
Relationships

At the end of this course, Fellows should be familiar with the most important laws
that they will have to engage with in their personal and professional lives. Being
aware of one's rights and duties under these statutes will allow them to:
(i) Engage in more informed debates on public issues dominating the
headlines today
(ii) Have an upper hand in negotiations with their employer/business
partner/client/investor/employee and
(iii) Become a better citizen of India

Course Title – Evolution, Econmics and Reasons

Faculty – William Scott Green

In this course we will examine three contemporary interdisciplinary works that

address three basic questions about human experience:

 Where do we come from?

 How do we flourish?
 How do we think?
 List of Courses at the YIF (2018-2019)

Course Title – Gender and Culture in Bombay Cinema

Faculty – Geetanjali Chanda

Popular culture is a backdrop to our daily lives. It is our first teacher and from it we
learn what it is to be a boy or a girl, a man or a woman; it guides us through gender
roles, social behaviours and relationships; each phase of our life-rituals – birth,
marriage and death are shaped by its hidden melody. Bollywood has shaped
language, fashion, music, dance and most of all social values. We will study the social
and political contexts that frame the production, dissemination and consumption of
these values.

This course aims to understand the role of popular culture and the ‘work’ it does in
nation building. It explores the hidden ideologies of gender and class that are
embedded in apparently innocent entertainment. The course will provide us with the
tools to read a text/film and it will empower us to challenge and change mainstream
norms.

Course Title - Paradise Lost; A Text for Our Times

Faculty – Malabika Sarkar

Milton’s lifetime (1608-1674) can truly be called the age of revolution – the Puritan Revolution
that witnessed the assassination of a monarch and the Scientific Revolution that dismantled
centuries of belief in a concentric earth-centred cosmos. It was in this atmosphere of
questioning of authority that the radical poet, John Milton, conceived and composed his
magnificent epic, Paradise Lost.

Sometimes directly, but more often in subversive ways, Paradise Lost challenges
contemporary beliefs including gender stereotypes. These are the complex issues that the
course will examine with special attention to the Chaos and Cosmos of Paradise Lost, and the
characters of Adam, Eve, Satan and Milton’s angels. The power and the eloquence of some of
the most moving lines of poetry in the epic ensure the abiding relevance of some of the
profound questions Milton raises in the epic. Indeed, many of these deeply troubling issues
are not very different from those we face today. Paradise Lost is not only a classic. It is a text
for our times.
 List of Courses at the YIF (2018-2019)

Course Title - Heart of Leadership

Faculty – Kenwyn Smith

This course addresses a number of basic issues central to leadership: wealth creation,
innovation, cross-sector collaboration, birthing possibilities, wealth distribution and fostering
new futures. The course builds upon the earlier YIF leadership course and draws upon the
thinking found in psychology, anthropology, sociology, management, politics, economics and
philosophy. We start from the premise that all leadership acts require a form of thinking that
transcends the conventional, while simultaneously standing on the shoulders of the reasoning
processes used by organizational members and managers embroiled in every-day decisions
about both the mundane and the profound. In short, leadership thinking is done in concert
with, but is not captive to, the conventional.

We will focus on developing new reasoning capabilities about a wide variety of topics. Our
deliberations will be both highly theoretical and highly practical. Students will find they are
stretched to think in abstract and concrete ways simultaneously. No theory divorced from
reality will be seen as relevant; no questions of application (“what we could or should do in any
situation”) unattached to meaningful and robust theory will be entertained. All participants will
be asked to push the envelope of their reasoning powers.

Course Title – Deconstructing Select Indian Foreign Policy Challenges and

Responses: A Practitioner’s Perspective
Faculty – Arun Singh

The course will seek to elaborate on and discuss select foreign policy challenges in
which the Faculty member was personally involved. Based on their personal
experience, assessments and other reports and evaluations, the students will be
encouraged to make their own evaluations of the severity of the challenges and
adequacy of the responses.

The aim is to enable the students to understand the dynamics of competing

national interests, compulsions behind policy choices, time and other pressures
while choices are exercised, and consequences of such choices. When faced with
similar situations in the future they should be able to better analyze and anticipate
developments.
 List of Courses at the YIF (2018-2019)

Course Title: Why is Globalization on Trial?

Faculty – Nayan Chanda

Over the past decades, especially since the outbreak of the 2008 global financial crisis,
popular discontent in the developed world has been focused on the ill-effects of
globalization. While globalization has lifted millions of people out of poverty in the
developing world both the extreme right and left leaning politicians in the west have
turned their anger against globalization. They accuse it for being responsible for the
economic and social problems of their societies. The most striking outcome of this
anger has been Brexit and the election of Donald Trump.

This course will explore the meaning of the term globalization, the history of the
phenomenon it describes, what exactly is globalization being held responsible for and
why. The course will assess if the accusations are justified and what is the future of
globalization. As part of the course one class will be devoted to holding a mock trial of
globalization. Students will write their individual verdict as their final paper.

Course Title – International Relations

Faculty – E. Sridharan & Devesh Kapur

This course covers the history, concepts and theories of International Relations and
will look at the international security landscape during the Cold War and post - Cold
War periods. It shall also cover India’s International Relations and Foreign Policies
during the Cold War and post-Cold War periods.

Multilateralism and India’s multilateral engagements will be examined and the course will
also look at the various international organizations at work in the world such as the WTO
and other International Financial Institutions.
 List of Courses at the YIF (2018-2019)

Course Title - Science as a Renaissance Activity

Faculty – Vijay Singh

The aim of this course is to:

1. Provide a cultural exposure for those who have not had an exposure to science
post high school. And to enrich the understanding of those who have had. Some
6 to 8 topics would be touched upon.
2. Suggest how the student could adopt a scientific perspective to make sense of
the world around her.
3. Outline the history and the philosophical underpinnings of each topic.
4. Describe the current relevance of this topic. This may imply devices we use (e.g.
laptops), facilities we access (x-rays), current issues (nuclear power plants,
environmental pollution).

The mathematical background will be very elementary and at the high school level:
numbers, ratios, simple algebra, simple geometry, reading and interpreting graphs, pie-
charts and bar charts. Trigonometry, if employed, is again at the high school level but will
be explained prior to using it.

Course Title - Shakespeare and the World

Faculty – Jonathan Gil Harris & Madhavi Menon

This course attempts to unearth important dimensions of nature and its changing
interface with human domains through an interdisciplinary socio-ecological as well as
historical perspective. The dynamics behind changing contextual conditions and the
resulting impact on natural spheres is particularly highlighted besides reviewing and
generating discourses on regional, national and global conservation concerns as well
as the feasibility of sustainable trajectories of development.

The course curriculum will be imparted through innovative audio-visual teaching

techniques and internal evaluation mechanisms to ensure the development of
analytical interdisciplinary skills and critical thinking for comprehending nature society
interactions that forms the core of critical debates pertaining to contemporary
environmental discourse. Exposure to case studies emanating from different
geographical domains will be an integral part of the course content particularly
mountain.
 List of Courses at the YIF (2018-2019)

Course Title – The Arts of Communication

Faculty – Mihir Mankad

This course is intended to turn you into a more persuasive and effective public speaker
– someone who speaks with the ease, confidence, clarity, and modes of persuasion
that are critical in today’s corporate, nonprofit, policy and diplomacy worlds. We will
cover a range of speaking scenarios, including presentations, impromptu and prepared
podium speeches, elevator pitches, and simulations of press conferences or media
interviews on camera. The course helps you develop your own personal style by
deepening your understanding of the persuasive tools, recommendations, refutations,
modes of analysis, and variations in audiences that motivate listeners to turn business,
policy and diplomacy ideas into action.

The course is valuable both for students without strong public speaking backgrounds
who wish to develop a basic rhetorical foundation and sense of ease in delivering
public speeches and other presentations, and also for strong speakers who wish to
push their skill in this important area to the next level. This course is thus useful for
both novice and experienced speakers. It is not, however, designed to help with basic
issues of grammar, usage, and fluency, and it is not recommended for students who
are new to English or who seek remedial support. Instead, Arts of Communication
teaches you the strategies, techniques, and habits of skilled speakers, and provides a
rigorous, immersive environment in which to internalize them.

Course Title – India and the World: A Strategic History Since 1945
Faculty – Rudra Chaudhuri

This course aims to cover India’s strategic history in the world since 1945 by dividing
the period into 2 broad parts:

1. The first part will look at the Strategies, Ideas, History and the Cold War from
1945 till 1979;
2. The second part will look Diplomacy, Insurgency and Nuclear Weapons from
1979 till the 21st century.

The course should give students a clearer look at the events and ideas that have gone
into shaping India’s history particularly its strategic history since 1945.
 List of Courses at the YIF (2018-2019)

Course Title – Law and Economics

Faculty – Subashish Gangopadhyay

While law tries to create a “just” society based on the principle of equality of all
individuals before the law, economists, want their society to maximize aggregate
welfare. The concept of what is ‘just’ is far removed from the concept of aggregate
welfare and, hence, economists cannot claim that they have a methodology that
is capable of answering questions posed in law. Wherever the two methodologies
give the same answer regarding what to do in a society, i.e., the objectives of the
law and the economics are both satisfied, we have no problem. Where they do
not, the two disciplines need to come together to resolve the conflicting answers.
This course will try and bring these two aspects to the fore.

At the end of the course, we hope that Fellows can:

 Identify the economic issues in a legal problem

 Formulate the economic issues as an economics problem
 Apply the economics methodology to analyse and solve the reformulated
problem
 Assess whether the economic solution is in conformity with the legal
solution
 Hence, assess the economic costs and benefits of legal rules and policies

Course Title – Ecology and Global Modernity

Faculty – Aseem Shrivastava

The course offers students an ecological understanding of modernity, as distinct

from an environmental one. We will first discuss the idea of modernity, building in
the process a historical understanding of development and globalisation. Then we
will proceed to the clarification of key conceptual distinctions, such as that
between sustainability and renewal.

The aim will be to help students build an imaginative critical perspective on the
growing global ecological crisis.
 List of Courses at the YIF (2018-2019)

Course Title – Philosophy and Cognitive Science

Faculty – Ritwik Agrawal

This course is centered on a philosophical question – is it possible to develop a

‘cognitive science’? That is, a branch of inquiry that will result in definitive and
universal knowledge about the human mind, an entity (for the want of a better
word) which has eluded such claims for millennia.

The significant advances made in the field of linguistics in the last seven decades
provide hope that our increasingly definite and technical knowledge of language will
yield insights into the ‘structure’ of the human mind. The philosophical foundation
for this claim can be traced back to Descartes, who identified our ability to use signs
as the surest indicator of ‘thoughts wrapped up in the body’. Apart from philosophy
and linguistics, we shall consider scholarly literature from psychology, animal
cognition, artificial intelligence, paleoanthropology and related domains in our quest
to understand the properties and special characteristics of the human mind.

Course Title – Religious Pluralism: Models from South Asia

Faculty – Neelima Shukla-Bhatt

In a world most corners of which are becoming increasingly multi-cultural and multi-
religious, turning religious diversity into vibrant pluralism is both a challenge and an
urgent need. People work daily in contexts of diversity. Countries take pride in their
growing diversity. Yet the mere fact of diversity does not create a pluralistic society.
Creation of a pluralistic ethos requires consistent striving for constructive
engagement with diversity by individuals, communities, and institutions of
governance. It requires philosophical thought, cultural traditions, and supportive
policies of the state. With a long history of religious diversity, South Asia has a rich
repertoire of resources for strategies of turning it into pluralism.

This course will explore philosophical/religious concepts, cultural forms, and models
of governance in the history of South Asia that may offer helpful insights for building
pluralistic and harmonious societies in our own times.
 List of Courses at the YIF (2018-2019)
Course Title - Kabir: The Poet of Vernacular Modernity
Faculty - Purushottam Agrawal

In this course, we will study Kabir as a major voice of vernacular modernity and rational
enquiry. The question naturally rises—what does modernity means, why is it important? And,
what is meant by vernacular modernity?

Kabir was a bhakta poet. But, was he born to weaver parents or merely brought up by them?
Why he chose the path, he chose? Was it a kind of compulsive choice determined by his social
identity? Or was it a thinking and discriminating individual’s choice? And, what is the kind of
bhakti Kabir and others like him propounded? Was it a mere reaffirmation of old Vaishnava
Dharma? Or it was something rather new, specific to early modern India?

Then, there is the question of Kabir coming out as a misogynist on one hand and himself
adopting the female persona in his poetry on the other. How do we explain it historically and
aesthetically? No prior training in reading early modern texts is expected on part of the
students. The only pre-condition is an open, sensitive and inquisitive mind.

We will be studying following themes.

1. What is vernacular modernity?

2. Who was Kabir?

3. What is Bhakti? (or Bhakti as participation)

4. The feminine and Kabir 5. The poetry: Spirituality beyond religious denominations.

Course Title - Issues in Social Democracy and Social Justice in India

Faculty – Narendra Jadhav

This course aims to take a broad and inclusive look at the various components that
effect the workings of social democracy and social justice in India.

This will be done by examining issues such as the caste system, economic growth and
development, gender, senior citizens, the Indian Constitution and so on, and the
impact and effect of these issues on social democracy and social justice.